Don't forget the fact that you can always find at least two items of food past their sell-by date, and that their receipts rather cheekily carry the phrase 'THE CROUCH END EPICUREAN'. I don't think so...

Thank you GSE and Clair - these are all good and valid additions to the list. I thought I'd stop at 10 which seems a nice number although, as you point out, there is so much more we could say. Now don't get me started on Woolies.....although I have yet to find anything in there worth buying so it seems a little churlish to do a job on them.

My favourite Crouchy shop is the hardware one, where I once took a garden tool to the counter, and asked the man behind it 'What is this?. He replied 'A spade', and I relished the moment when I could finally utter the words 'I like a man who calls a spade a spade'.